Category: Social Justice Documentaries

Peace Officer explores the ‘militarization’ of police forces in the U.S. The documentary takes you through a few cases where S.W.A.T. were used in situations that didn’t require them, with outcomes that involved death or near-death.Continue Reading

The Bolivian Case takes us through the story of how a group of Norwegian teenagers attempted to smuggle drugs from Bolivia back to Norway. It starts with three young women who are busted at the airport when trying to fly back to Norway. Yes, drugs found in their luggage. As the documentary goes along you learn of the larger group who put the entire plan together.Continue Reading

You’re out fighting in Afghanistan. Your new superior is all about killing innocent civilians for no reason – and covering it up. The rest of your platoon buys-in. If you don’t play along, you could be dead. What do you do.

The Kill Team documentary is about such a case — a young American soldier faced with such a predicament and ends up discharging his weapon when the rest of the group are ‘setting up’ a kill of an innocent Afghan. It’s unknown whether his bullet was the one that killed the man, but he’s charged with murder regardless.Continue Reading

Valentine Road, shown a Hot Docs yesterday, contains so many levels. It’s definitely emotional and complex. Take a young gay/transgender student, Larry, who starts dressing more feminine in class as he begins to feel more comfortable with who he is. Then, in a game of ‘Valentine’ he asks a white male student (Brandon) to be his valentine – in front of his friends. Larry also happens to be biracial – a point that we later find out may be part of the motive.Continue Reading

“One Fine Day” is a doc highlighting a group of separate stories about how an individual broke away from what everyone was doing (or what everyone was just ‘accepting’) and took a stand and did something about it. The stories range from African American athletes making at point at the Olympics, to fostering the fall of the Berlin Wall, to demanding more access to education in Chile, to Monks revolting in Burma, and more…Continue Reading